No Superstrings Attached

6/1/09

Last week, I was in Palawan to expand my cultural work to Cuyonons, who, like the Kapampangans and the other non-Tagalogs, and experiencing cultural decline. Aside from directing a Cuyonon rock music video in Puerto Princesa, I also delivered a lecture to Mass Communication students of PSU (Palawan State University). See news item below (taken from http://bulyawmariguen.multiply.com)

LOCAL EYES: CREATING WORKS OF ART WITH LOCAL CULTURAL CONTENT

As a means to entice young media practitioners in creating works of art or production works with local cultural content, Matinlo Productions in cooperation with Bulyaw Mariguen, Kamaru Productions and JCI Kiao conducted a lecture/workshop entitled Local Eyes: creating Works of Art with Local Cultural Content to 31 3rd & 4th year Mass Communication Students of the Palawan State University last May 27, 2009.

The lecture started with an exercise conducted by Jason Laxamana of Kamaru productions assessing how the students use their local environment in creating their own superhero. Jason Laxamana then proceeded to explaining the exercise and then to showing the students some of the works of Kamaru.

In his lecture, Jason laxamana emphasized the benefits of creating production works with local cultural content. His Kapampangan short film entitled Balangingi in Kapampangan or Nosebleed in English which won in the ETC First Philippine Digital Awards for best short film is living proof that using local cultural content in film can give filmmakers a competitive advantage in such competitions. The sense of pride such works bring to the local community was also mentioned.

Due to a scheduled radio guesting at DYPR Palawan Radyom, Jason Laxamana gave way for Bulyaw Mariguen to perform their carrier single, Ploning Adin Ka Ren. Matinlo productions chose to ask Bulyaw Mariguen to perform in this lecture to show the students the possibility of using the local language in Palawan, Cuyonon, in making songs that are appealling to the young generation of Palawenos and viable for mainstream broadcasting. Joey Fabello of Matinlo productions, also known as DJ Jojo of IFM 99.9 by some of the students, briefly explained the Bulyaw Mariguen project after the performance of the band to reiterate the value of using local content in works of art and production works.

Certificates were awarded and snacks were provided by Jci Kiao after the lecture.

3/6/09

Not too long ago, I wanted to make a prophecy/revelation type of work in first person perspective. Kinda like an anonymous fiction, which ought to be controversial in the long run. But ningas-kugon prevailed over my being, so I wasn't able to finish it. It was also getting too complicated, hehe. Thus, I renamed the title from The Eastern Messiah to "The Incomplete Revelations of the Eastern Messiah." Let's pretend that the rest of the "scrolls" have been destroyed, hehe.

Incomplete Revelations of the Eastern Messiah

We are the cells of the Sole Source. While we enjoy exercising our free will, we are limited to the will of the Sole Source. I come to enlighten you about literally everything. Now that you have made contact with this, your destiny has already been defined. Waste the wisdom not.

I physically come from a Third World Country, but spiritually, I come from the Sole Source where all of us came from.

With the rise of conflict, confusion, and predictions of Global Wars, my presence has been sent to this sheet of reality to clear things up. My coming could have been predicted by Great Prophets of the past, and I am here only to fulfill my cause: to destroy the new religion of empiricism among the scientific community, tell them in simple terms the secret of the universe, and contribute to the resurrection of life frameworks that have long been kept in the dark by the very empirical nature of modern science.

But no grudge should be held against the scientific community, or the vicious religious fervor of the past, as they have been all planned, and they are continually serving their respective purposes.

I could be branded as one of the Anti-Christs of Nostradamus. Know though that I am in no way evil - no one is, as we are all here to play our simple tasks the Sole Source is directing through his/her Great Mind.

Allow me to guide you and broaden your understanding about yourself and the world. From here, your journey towards enlightenment begins.

The Primary Constituents of Everything

To begin this series of path toward enlightenment, it is significant to tackle first the primary elements of the Universe. When I mention Universe, I refer not to this cosmic locality said to have come from a big burst, but to all the branches of energy across time and space, across realities and dimensions. We will delve into those in the future.

What are the primary objects that make up and cause everything? In no particular order:

ENERGY

This is the flesh of the Sole Source. As scientists have claimed, energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed. And they are correct. Everything in the Universe is a transformation of energy from its pure, basic form to pieces of complexity such as human societies and cosmic localities like our universe.

EQUALITY

A physical law discovered by one of our scientists states that in a slice of reality, the Sole Source shall always strive to make the contents of that slice in a state of equilibrium, like ice melding into water. But the Sole Source does this with a process. The act of decentralizing a region of greater energy requires energy. Equilibrium is always the objective once two systems interact.

INEQUALITY

To attain equilibrium, energy is needed. Water cannot be one with gas if energy (heat) is lacking. Water turns to ice when not enough energy (heat) is present to achieve equilibrium. As mentioned by one of our scientists, the center of a locality needs to collect energy from all possible sources in order to decentralize itself in the future.

Energy, Equality, and Inequality are the three primary components of the Sole Source, of everything. One might ask, how can equality and inequality exist at the same time?

If the primary members of a region are Equality (EQ) and Inequality (IN), would you say the region is in a state of equilibrium if there is only Equality present? In a country where there should be males and females, would you say it is a country in a state of equilibrium if only males exist? No.

Thus, if EQ and IN are a given in the Universe, to achieve equilibrium, there should be both EQ and IN. This is what makes history go forward, contrary to what Marx calls "material man VS material nature" or Hegel's "true consciousness VS false consciousness."

This makes EQ = IN and IN = EQ, because in order for the Universe to provide equilibrium, there should be EQ and IN. Equality is Inequality (of the primary components of the Universe) and Inequality is Equality (of the primary components of the Universe).

To express it visually, in a Universe where there should be equality and inequality:

Not Equal:

EQ EQ EQ EQ EQ EQ

Equal:

EQ IN EQ IN EQ IN

From here, we shall explain everything: from the conflicts of man to the life system of a tree; from the fate our universe to the future of mankind; from the concept of gravity to the explanation of clairvoyance; and from the economic patterns to the possibility of time travel.

The typical scientist will quickly dismiss my claims. He shall be quite like the religious fanatics of old who dismissed empirical scientists with their then unconventional claims about the world.

Be not like those which you demonize.

The Centralization-Decentralization Dialectic

It is a well-established scientific law that in every event, the Sole Source does everything to keep things in place to conserve energy. This is the reason regions of greater energy are decentralized in time, because sustaining inequality in a certain region consumes too much energy.

But as mentioned in my earlier lecture, the act of decentralization or neutralization of energy itself requires extra energy to accomplish, making the phenomenon of centralization necessary as well.

The greater inequality there is, the greater amount of energy is needed to smooth things out. It is fortunate that Charles Boyle has already made this well-known to the scientific community. Stephen Hawking is another wise lad to form the concept of entropy. The more broken a house is, for example, the more energy is needed to fix it. Allow the Eastern Messiah to develop their wisdom.

First, we must define what a center is. A center is a region with energy greater than that of the rest of its surroundings. In the realm of human relations, a center could mean a region with resources greater than the rest of its surroundings.

Once a center emerges, the Sole Source instantaneously controls the surroundings and makes them act to decentralize it. The greater energy the center is holding, the more energy it needs to drain from all possible sources to have its energy distributed to the rest of its environment.

Having established that the inequality of energy distribution in a region needs energy to put the region under a state of equilibrium, a question might be asked: what if the energy of the surroundings is not enough? The answer may be put in analogy by using the freezer as example.

The freezer’s objective is to extinguish heat (energy) inside its chamber. This is what makes water inside it freeze—because there is not enough energy to neutralize water with gas, the water and its environment remain in a state of inequality. If extreme energy (heat) is applied, water will be one with gas and heat is equally distributed.

Take a cube of ice and drop it in a glass of water. If the water is cold (less energy), equalization of energy happens slower, as one can see in the slow melting process. If the water is hot (more energy), equalization of energy happens faster, as one can see in the quick melting process.

Why does a bowl of hot soup emit water vapor? This is, again, the Sole Source’s act of decentralization. It tries to equalize the temperature of the soup and the temperature of the open air.

It is to be noticed that the act of sustaining inequality in a freezer requires energy from an external source: electricity. The act of promoting equality is just as energy-consuming as the act of promoting inequality.

Low Pressure Phenomenon

This is another term that we shall use to refer to centers. A low-pressure area is a pocket where there is great amount of energy, which can be understood either as having higher kinetic energy than that of its surroundings, or having the conditions that could minimize the energy consumption of its environment—literally, a region of lesser hardship, lesser energy consumption. In any case, they mean the same thing.

And this is how it is: everything that sucks/attracts is a region of low pressure. This includes gravity, the sucking behavior of tornadoes, black holes, and cyclones.

Imagine carrying a boulder on your back. Why does the boulder seem like “itching” to fall down on the floor, in that if you decide to let go of the heavy thing, the boulder instantly slams on the ground? This is because more energy is being consumed in holding the boulder up instead of letting it fall down.

This is not limited to objects alone but in human beings as well. Imagine a fast-food restaurant where there are three ordering counters. Five customers are lined in each counter. Suddenly, a fourth counter announces that it’s open for taking orders. Question: what will the human beings do? Who is more likely to go to the newly-opened counter? Why will he/she do that?

Basically, the reason is it will save energy. Those who will not go to the fourth counter are people who deem going there more energy-consuming than staying on the location that they are in.

Social scientists will disagree with me, as they are boxed in the prison of empiricism and the fads of the scientific community. As a result, social science has never produced a single social science law, only theories. But that is fine; throughout my teachings, we will all learn that even that has served its function the way the Sole Source planned it out.

Anyway, what I mentioned earlier is the concept of gravity. What I’m trying to say here is that gravity, low pressure, and centralization are all governed by the same law of the Sole Source regarding the process of achieving equilibrium: a strong center accumulates energy from its environment, which will lead to decentralization, i.e., distribution of the energy to the surroundings. With insufficient energy, the regions are temporarily suspended in a state of inequality, like the Solar System for example.

Even migration patterns in human societies are governed by the same law. We’ll delve into that in the future.

Nature of Typhoons

Typhoons are the Sole Source’s way of didstributing heat.

The only way for humans to stop a typhoon is to surpass the energy it contains, which I believe is still impossible currently.

Basically, a typhoon forms when a certain region, e.g. a section of the Pacific, acquires more heat compared to its environment. Where does this heat come from? Most likely, it comes from the volcanic eruptions underwater in the Ring of Fire.

If it’s a region of relatively extreme heat which needs to be distributed fairly, Natural law will cause the colder air molecules around it to rush toward the center—thus, giving birth to a spiraling, destructive force of nature that accumulates energy along the way (getting bigger and stronger). It spins because it is more organized that way; organization, like people falling in line, is an expression of energy conservation.

The cold air voluntarily rushes toward the center, in order for the air molecules to get their share of the heat until the typhoon is fully decentralized (typhoon dissipates).

This is the law that happens everywhere—even in things you can’t fathom right now like time travel and psychometry.

In the future, humans will be able to harness the energy of a typhoon to convert the raging energy into something useful.

What I have given you so far are simple examples of the centralization-decentralization dialectic. I have used basic human examples, too, but in the future, we will be able to analyze society, even in international relations, using this very law of the Sole Source. Unlike the past philosophers, we shan’t be giving special treatment to humans, as they are merely part of nature and twigs of the central trunk, and, thus, are governed by the natural laws as well.

Complex examples will be understood if the concept of fractalization is comprehended as an expression of energy conservation. That will be the wisdom I shall distribute to you in the future.

For now, I encourage you to ponder on human life and the universe. Identify the regions of centralizations and analyze the process that they are undergoing. These are the characteristics of a center: 1) they seem to attract/suck, 2) they seem to dominate, 3) and they have higher amounts of energy or lower levels of energy consumption compared to environment.

This is supposed to be the first chapter of a post-Apocalyptic Catholic fantasy novel I was planning to create way back in January 2006. It was published in my column at Peyups.com. Despite getting good comments from readers and having floods of ideas in my head, I did not pursue making it, and I forgot why.

The title written in Peyups.com is The Accounts of Omnsca, Omnsca being the Most Supreme Being in the universe of my story, but I remember changing the title to The Sin of God when I was starting to write the second chapter. Will I continue writing this? I don't know.

The Sin of God

Chapter 1The Deportation of Lucifer to the Void

The Holy Book, true to its prophecies, had fulfilled all that had been written on its consecrated pages, similar to a righteous man keeping a promise of happy life to a gullible lady of innocence. A righteous man, though, will encounter bumpy paths in an attempt to maintain that which was promised. Quite like the Holy Bible.

Three Resurrections had passed. The first happened after the Tribulation of Man, when the Heavenly Father rid the world of the impure through battles between man and his fellow. Those who survived the war were actually the ones whom God had adjudged worthy of His kindness. Those who were already dead, but were virtuous during their living days, rose from the cold earth and continued to relish the reward of the Almighty after the Judgment. Lucifer and his minions (including the spirits of the impure humans) were chained in Hell, therefore the demons having no access to man’s free will for one thousand years.

Man multiplied during those one thousand years. On the first day of the one-thousand-first year, God resurrected those who had died during the post-Tribulation days. That was the Second Resurrection. For Lucifer’s imprisonment was effective only for a millennium, he was then set free from his being bound, again permitted to try luring mankind into antagonism. God used Satan’s knack for corrupting souls to test who really were kind-spirited, thus, eligible to enter His realm.

For one century, Lucifer tempted and God observed. There were those whom the Devil had success in diverting from the Light, but a number still resisted diabolic seduction. God’s time of reckoning finally came to an end; with Hellfire He incinerated the vast universe He created with great love, even before the narratives in the book of Genesis had taken place. All was reduced to the basic form of matter. None survived, but the spirits of men who remained holy had undergone the Third Resurrection.

The holy ones, determined so through the Grand Deliberation, had God as company in Paradise, and were rewarded with eternal life and the power to Create, while the demons were given eternal death. Lucifer was spared and was taken by Principalities Tarraviel and Arvanel to the western edge of God’s universe, where it was all void and gloomy.

For nine millennia, Lucifer stayed in the void. With minions erased from existence, he talked to no one—not even to himself, for he was drowned with and shut up by the thought of defeat. It had been several millennia of war against Heaven, several millennia of corrupting God’s servants, turning them into little bringers of shade. He had been able to collect a great number of followers, but the Light reigned after all.

“It was already mentioned in the Book; it was crafted to unfold the way it indeed unfolded; I should have... trusted Eli’s omniscience.”

Loathing the Almighty, Lucifer actually believed he had enough power to crook the line of Fate as seen by God. Filled with envy, he never believed good would have triumphed, for he badly desired to overtake his own creator in terms of power.

“Maybe... I should return and ask for... forgiveness,” he cried in the void.

The leash of pride was keeping Lucifer from accepting defeat and considering repent, but as centuries passed by, slowly the leash loosened, his satanic heart little by little revivifying its sanctified origin, for he used to be at par with Archangels Michael and Gabriel.

Finally, the deported Devil came up with a decision—a decision which required the greatest humility known in God’s universe. He was the major enemy of the Light in the past; returning to his creator’s side would be the most humiliating deed. Nevertheless, he felt he deserved the upcoming shame, for he had caused too much pain on God’s part, turning His children against their fellow servants of God and God Himself.

But he was done manufacturing sin. He must travel back to the boss he used to serve.

“Lucifer,” suddenly called someone with a teasing tone, “Your overpowering of Eli lingers not in mere imagination and ambition still. It is not over!”

With millennia of being and knowing he is alone, hearing a voice in empty space was the biggest surprise, perplexed whether to feel fright or relief.

“Who speaks to me?” Lucifer asked.

Years passed and the voice neither spoke again nor answered the evictee’s inquiry. Lucifer’s plan of returning to God was suspended due to his excitement to see company. After eleven years, the voice went teasing Lucifer’s hearing again. During those eleven years of anticipation, Lucifer did not become impatient, for existing in boredom for nine millennia made a year seem like a second.

The unknown speaker told Lucifer, “Think, Light Bringer. You know very well who I am. This is not the first time I told you a word. This is not the first time I... whispered to you.”

"I do not remember who you are, but you do sound familiar. Are you one of my Seraphims who resisted Eli’s punishment of everlasting death?”

"Incorrect. Why don’t you reminisce your past, Lucifer? Your life as... an Archangel. When you served Eli still and enforced all the laws of the Light. Just right before you... put out the holy fire that sustains your kind, kind spirit.”

Lucifer had the shock of his life, even more shocking than when he heard the voice after a very long period of sad tranquility.

“You!” he shouted. “I remember you! You were the Evil that shook my passion of serving the Light. You were the Evil that planted the seed of envy in my core. You were she who made the Archangel Lucifer fall from Eli’s grace. You are... Moaa.”

“It’s been a while, Archangel,” the voice laughed, as the entity started to appear before Lucifer’s vision. “The Bible is just like any storybook to a human child. The tales always end, saying the heroes shall live in unending bliss just to extinguish the fear of what shadows loom in the future.”

Comments by Peyups.com surfers may be read here: http://peyups.com/article.khtml?sid=4152

3/5/09

This is a rare phenomenon—my first and only fantasy work (so far) written in Kapampangan. A renowned Kapampangan published poet found my work masanting ya pangabalangkas, or beautifully written. However, the literary Kapampangan I used in this short story will turn off Kapampangans of my age, because there are a lot of words not used in everyday conversations.

I don't expect most Filipinos to understand it either, because Kapampangan is not as popular as Cebuano or Ilocano, but I'll post it here anyway for the purpose of archiving. Just to give you an idea, it's a modified version of the war between Lord Sinukuan of Mount Arayat and Lord Namalyari of Mount Pinatubo.

3/3/09

This blog shall serve as my online repository of writings (or probably even films) we can arguably categorize under what people call spec-fic, or speculative fiction. Fantasy, horror, and science fiction are the genres that generally come to mind when spec-fic is mentioned.

I opened this blog in addition to my numerous blogs, most of which are advocacy-related. Lately, I have been writing realistic literary pieces, believing that it's a higher form of literature compared to spec-fic, under which—thinking about it—I have been writing ever since high school, back when I had no idea of the concept of spec-fic.

As a campus writer, I often wrote articles my peers found strange (and amusing, hehe)—dream sequences, short stories set in other worlds, meta-scientific essays, and stuff, both in English and Tagalog. I often made up fanastic stories my high school barkada would listen to the synopses of.

However, when I went to UP for college, I somehow drifted towards realism, due to the influence of the prevalence of realistic literary readings. Bob Ong's keen observation of his immediate surroundings affected me greatly (greater than Rowling's influence on me), and it made my writings much more fantasy-free.

Then came PanPil and Hum readings which were mostly, if not absolutely, realist. When I got a column at Peyups.com (320/320 Vision), almost all my articles were essays and short stories which were, again, fantasy free.

The spec-fic writer in me would re-surface at times. A great example would be my MP 174 class (Play Writing in Filipino) under the late Rene Villanueva. I already forgot the title, but it was about a high school student brought to the World of Gods after figuring out the secret of the universe. The boy encounters a wacky type of world, with gods speaking in different languages about the respective universes they "govern," which were actually just entries to the "annual" Universe-Making contest in their kingdom. The line from God I remember the most is: "Jesus Christ was a glitch in my program. Sorry."

My whole work was read by the class and the whole idea of the play freaked out (in a positive way) my classmates because it was too... weird. Rene Villanueva even tagged my work "an example of tragedy," because the Almight God in the story discovers that there's a Being much more supreme than He is, and upon discovering this, he is brought to the world of His own Creator.

Then, in one of our exercises in Scriptwriting for Television, I wrote a one-episode TV show about Judgment Day—a poorly executed Judgment Day because as the "Judgment Day Committee Head-Angel" claimed, they lacked funds for a grand end of the world. The main story though revolved around a torpe guy desperate to propose marriage to the apple of his eye in spite of the end of the world.

Exposure to neorealist films in College however attracted me back to realism. Then Rizalian literature. Then more realistic films and documentaries. Then Albina Peczon Fernandez. More realistic stories.

So definitely, fantasy was out of the way, except probably our unfinished "Kalam" (Blessing), a Kapampangan TV drama on a production standby due to financial matters. It's being written and directed by me, and it's urban fantasy, exploring Kapampangan folklore in an urban setting.

My recent exposure to my native language Kapampangan made me a trilingual writer. Although I dream of creating contemporary Kapampangan works, sadly, Kapampangans of my age are usually illiterate in reading their own language. What's the point of writing without readership? I have come to conclude that my advocacy for Kapampangan and its linguistic empowerment is best fulfilled through the Kapampangan audio-video works I produce, because reading is a burdensome task for most Filipinos.

Thus, my literary writing will probably revert back to English, while only occasionally writing in Tagalog and Kapampangan. While I will still continue to write realist works, I have chosen to not forget the spec-fic in me, which I, for a long time, have imprisoned in the vaults of my heart.

I am not the "perfect" writer, since I have a lot of issues with the prevailing standards of literary beauty. While I enjoy obscurity, there are just some works which are too obscure for me, too artsy fartsy, and I'm sometimes forced to think—who reads this stuff? Contest judges perhaps?

I didn't create this blog thinking "I'm good at spec-fic, so people must have access to my works." This blog probably best serves as my journey towards improving my craft. Works of an aspiring spec-fic writer with fluctuating confidence.